Water
by Kara-El
Summary: Lois Lane used to love swimming...


_**One-Shot written for the 12 Days of Clois 100 Challenge**_

_**Title:** Water_

_**Author:** Kara-El_

_**Category:** Movieverse/Superman Returns_

_**Prompt:** #15 Water_

_**Rating:** PG-13_

_**Spoilers:** for Superman Returns_

_**Word Count:** 816_

_A/N -- My first challenge Fic -- from an idea that popped in when I read the list of prompts. Very personal since I also love the water._

_Summary: _

_Lois used to love swimming…_

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_I used to love to swim – loved the cold lake… the dark water – until I had to fight it for him -- _

_-- until I had to grab and reach -- with salt-blind eyes -- for a scrap of cloth, a strand of hair – anything to pull him back into my life. Huh… back into my life. _

_What a liar I am. _

_I got my dream house by the ocean, a fiancée who could fly and swim – my dream. _

_On the swim team, the high school swim team, I was a diver. Unafraid to leap from the highest board – really trying to make my dad notice -- I was to be the boy he'd wanted – tough like a boy, anyway. _

_So… I loved the water – a freezing lake, a warm pool… the ocean. _

_The ocean… _

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"Lois."

"Lo-is… earth to Lois…"

"What is it, Clark?"

"Are you going to just sit there?"

"What?"

Clark makes a vaguely familiar swooping motion with his hand. "Come in… for a dip. You know, swim -- the water's warm."

Using Jason's bright red sand shovel, Lois digs a moat -- around what could be interpreted as a castle… if the person looking at it stands on their head, and squints, while peering through the wrong end of a telescope. Her toes furrow into the cool sand and she makes a show of carving some detail work on her sand castles wall.

"No… I'm fine here -- avoiding the sharks, and all that." Her voice sounds salt-cracked, she tastes the brackish air, her lips chapped from licking the corners.

"Mom, c'mon," Jason cajoles, his hair molded to his perfect skull, darker than she's used to. _He doesn't look scared._ "The water's not deep here – it's okay."

_He got over it so fast_ – "Jason, I'd rather – wouldn't you like to make a sand castle for me, honey?"

"Mo-om, I want to go in with Clark."

"Mr. Clark."

Clark enters Lois's peripheral range and her lizard-brain notices his… chiseled physique, chiseled cheekbones, and chiseled… _stop it, Lois – it's CLARK, for heaven's sake. _

"C-Clark's fine, Lois – I don't mind…"

"Clark, you're sweet, but he needs to practice his manners." Twin pairs of blue eyes, both innocent in their pleas, break her resolve. She unfolds her legs and stands, keeping an eye on her gritty real estate while she steps around it. "Fine, I'll come in."

Clark watches her with anxious concern, knowing the trepidation she feels – feeling it himself, realizing how hard this step into the cool expanse will be. He listens to her heart begin its tarantella, its near erratic beat birthing a ghostly reply in his own center.

"Take my hand, Honey."

Her head snaps up so fast, Clark fears for one of her famous Charlie-horses and, sure enough, her grimace fulfills his prediction and her hand flies up to her neck.

"Honey?" Lois growls while rubbing her neck to release the cramp. "Honey?"

_I said that out loud? Oops. _

"Got your attention," he disarms her with a lopsided grin; she laughs a bit shrilly but gives over her hand, and locks on with a grip an ordinary man may have yelped at.

Clark loves it. _Tighter, Lois – I can almost feel it… _

The swirling ocean nibbles and licks at her ankles, and Lois feels a frisson of fear.

_The swirling darkness. _

_The air snatched from my lungs -- like a slimy, cold hand reached in and grabbed… and pulled… _

"I c-can't…"

Clark catches her by the waist and looks into her eyes, lost – the water forgotten.

Off-balance, they slip into the gentle surf -- the soft sand melting like cool ice cream, sliding away under their feet. For most people, this is the romance of the sand, the seduction of the surf, but, for them, it is the undertow and the darkness, the draw of the endless depths… and frozen death below.

They lock eyes, both panicked although the water laps mere inches over their skin. They perspire, chilled despite the heat of the sun, while Jason, a wise soul who knows that they need to get through this together, sits in the sand, watching.

Their hearts pound, and Lois looks at Clark, his glasses gone to the waves; his secret washed away with the tide.

They don't speak for a long time – perhaps an hour - probably a second. Then, together, they break the silence. "Shh, it's okay. You're okay."

Exasperated, Jason can stand the tension no longer, and stuffs his tiny fists into his sides like a comic-book superhero.

"Mom, can we go swimming… now that you know Mr. Clark is Superman?"

They laugh, way too hard and long for it to be healthy. Jason, sitting off to one side, is less than sure -- since the sound is shrill. Then they relax, collapsing in the rippled sand and water, and Lois looks, at long last, into the eyes she loves.

End.

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